THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

Happy Birthday (Birth Month) to me! It has been a great month, the weather is beautiful, and summer is just around the corner!

The kids have been enjoying popsicles and playing with the neighbor kids on their playstructures.

Sammy has become a real talker in the last month. He repeats EVERYTHING, and though it is not always perfectly understandable, he definitely communicates and speaks in short sentences now. When we are driving in the car or reading books, he is constantly interrupting to point things out - “MAMA - Air-pane” “Mama - truck” - “MAMA - cloud” etc.
He asks for things politely “mama, mo buberry peese” (he still signs “more” with a kind of clapping motion) and when I give him something he says “taynk ooo”. He is also becoming bi-lingual thanks to Dora and Diego, he says “abre” when he wants me to open a door or something for him. He is always saying “I do it!” or “I did it!” When he jumps or climbs or does something. He has been liking doing puzzles lately, and I am working on getting him to help clean up. Whenever he spills something (which is several times a day), he immediately runs to grab a towel or the broom and dustpan, saying “keen, keen”. He is starting to sing the “clean up, clean up, everybody clean up” song with me and he is trying to sing along whenever Rosie sings lately too…

He is so friendly, he says Hi and Bye Bye to everyone. A few days ago, we were taking a walk through the neighborhood, and Sammy was sitting in the stroller like the grand marshall of a parade, constantly waving and saying “Hello” to everyone we passed. He loves to be silly, and make people laugh - his latest thing is putting his food or fork on his head when he is eating - he thinks it is hilarious!

He is obsessed with pushing in chairs at the table. He will climb up in his chair and say “mama, puuuuush” until I push him in - and if I sit next to him and don’t scoot my chair up to the table, he will make a pushing motion with his arm toward me and say “mama, puuuush” until I push my chair up to the table as well.

He is still throwing tantrums when he doesn’t get his way, but he is a little more gentle about it now, instead of throwing himself on the floor, he will gently lie down on his belly and put his head in his hands and whine for a few minutes, then he gets up and is usually fine. He will also do his pouty face, where he looks down, sticks his lips out, breathes heavily through his nose, and looks up at me with just his eyes. It is so cute, I want to capture it on video. He has been throwing things lately when he is upset too, food or toys or whatever, so I have been really trying to stop that behavior before it gets worse.

He idolizes his big sister and wants to do whatever she does (even wanting to put barrettes in his hair too). He still sits on the potty occasionally (with his pants and diaper on), usually whenever Rosie goes to the bathroom. Sometimes I will take his pants and diaper off and let him sit for a little bit. He hasn’t actually gone on the potty yet, but he likes to pretend to wipe, flush and then wash his hands after, so at least he is getting used to the routine. Just in the last few days, he has started a funny thing copying his sister. When Rosie goes poop, she usually needs help wiping, so she will yell out to me “MOM - I’m ready to wipe!”. I think Sammy just thinks this is what you say when you are sitting on the toilet, because he has gone and sat on the potty (in his clothes) and yelled out “MAMA - RAY WY!” a few times this week.
He tends to run all his words together - so “carry me please mommy” sounds like “cayemepesemommy”

He is still a great sleeper and I can pretty much count on 3 hour naps in the afternoon, and 12 hours at night. He is down to nursing only at naptime and bedtime and I am hoping to make the transition to weaning as smooth as possible.

Rosie is in full-on princess world now. I don’t know how it happened, but all of a sudden - she wants to read princess books, watch princess movies from the library, wear princess clothes - etc. She even knows the Disney logo - so if we see something in the store, she says “look mommy, its from DISNEY!”. I think we are going to have to give in and make our first trip to take her to Disney World next time we go down to visit Gigi in Florida. I got a “Birthday Express” catalog in the mail of kids “themed” birthday supplies (matching cups, plates, napkins, gift bags, favors, cake toppers, etc.) and she has been going through to pick out what she wanted for her party and she of course picked out the Princess theme and is set on getting a Princess cake for her birthday. She talks about her birthday every day and asks me how many more days until her birthday.

She is so smart and inquisitive, always asking questions and wanting to learn new things. She has been playing a lot of games on her dad’s iphone and choosing the missing letter in words, she has been sounding out everything, and just for fun, I wanted to see if she could read a couple nights ago. I took a notebook and wrote “MOM” on it and showed it to her and asked her if she could read what it said - she sounded out “mmmmah - aaaaah - mah” and then said ” MOM!” I told her - “you did it - you can read!” and she was so excited - she said “do another one” so I wrote a few more words, she read Dad, Cat, Bat, Hat, and a few others before she got bored of it…

She also loves to play games. Her latest is learning how to play games like Rock, Paper, Scissors. She thinks it is so fun - she learned it from the older kids at her school, along with something called “who didn’t come from the barnyard” which I guess is kind of like an “eeny meeny miny moe” kind of thing…

She is always making cute, smart, funny and really thought-provoking observations. Some recent ones:

Driving through 2 traffic circles back-to-back near our house “Hey, mommy - those traffic circles are like an 8!”

Driving past a convertible on the road “Hey mommy, that car doesn’t have a lid on it!”

Noticing her name “Rosemary” on her school bag - her teacher told me she started spelling it “R, O, S, E, M - hey - that doesn’t say Rosie?” and the teacher explained that it says “Rosemary” and Rosie said - “Yeah - that’s my name, and Rosie’s my half-name”.

She is a big nature lover, and we have been spending a lot of time outdoors, collecting ladybugs, caterpillars, and worms for the garden. She brought her little ladybug friend, named Lilac, to school the last week of school to show her teacher and classmates, as they were studying caterpillars and tadpoles and other little creatures. Then we had to let the ladybug go, I told her that 4 days was the rule, then the ladybug had to go home to her family.

Rosie has been really good about sharing with her brother, teaching him to share, helping, pushing his chair in, holding his hand when crossing the street, etc. It is so cute and I can see how they are going to protect each other as they get older. I can’t believe next month they will be 2 and 4!

So, yesterday was one of those idyllic days where I was, once again, thinking how awesome my new neighborhood is.

After running some errands in the morning, we came home and had lunch and I put Sammy down for a nap. Rosie and I went out to get the mail and noticed that one of our neighbors across the street had set up a giant bouncey house and there were about 10 kids inside. The neighbor saw us, pointed at Rosie, pointed at the bounce house and waved us over to play. There were a handful of parents around with plastic cups, and I was informed that it was the “last day of school” celebration - a ritual every year. The kids had just gotten off the bus from their 1/2 day and last day of school, and everyone was in a great mood. I was given an adult drink made with vodka, limeade and beer - named the “strip and go naked” and I was given a chair as I sat and talked to the other parents and watched the kids play. Throughout the hour, several other kids and parents stopped by - someone brought pizza, someone brought drinks, another mom walked up from down the street and brought chips and popsicles. There were about 30 kids total accumulated at this point (ranging in ages from 4-12), teams were made and a rousing game of “capture the flag” was played.

After a couple hours of fun, I came inside to wait for Sammy to wake up from his nap. While I was waiting, my sister in law, Pauline called and invited us to join her down at the neighborhood pool. I promised we would walk down after Sammy woke up. About 1/2 hour later, we were all in bathing suits, in the double stroller, heading to the pool. I spent the next 2 hours sitting in the sun, catching up on neighborhood gossip, and watching the kids have a great time playing and splashing in the pool with their cousins and other neighborhood kids.

It was a fun and awesome summer day, and the summer has only just begun. The kids slept great last night and the only casualty is a slight sunburn on my arms.
*Note to self, buy tons of sunscreen for the summer…

I am still in awe of the extended-family like atmosphere in the neighborhood. There are definitely little cliques on each street, but as a whole - everyone pretty much knows each other and gets along great.

Oh, and there is a huge neighborhood party at the pool this weekend, games, food, movies, etc. - I can’t wait!

I am looking forward to having a fabulous summer!